Parltrack
Parltrack is a european initiative to improve the transparency of legislative processes. It combines information on dossiers, representatives, vote results and committee agendas into a unique database and allows the tracking of dossiers using email and RSS. Most of the data presented is also available for further processing in JSON format. Using Parltrack it's easy to see at a glance which dossiers are being handled by committees and MEPs.
If you need advice on how the European Parliament (EP) works: please visit these sources:
European Parliament or
Activist guide to the EU (PDF).
Sources
Parltrack currently monitors the European law-making using the data available from europarl.europa.eu. The data is being scraped from OEIL, EP plenary minutes, online MEP profiles and parliamentary committee agendas.
Copyright
The EP releases this data under the following terms:
As a general rule, the reuse (reproduction or use) of textual data and multimedia items which are the property of the European Union (identified by the words '© European Union, [year(s)] – Source: European Parliament' or '© European Union, [year(s)] – EP' ) or of third parties (© External source, [year(s)]), and for which the European Union holds the rights of use, is authorised, for personal use or for further non-commercial or commercial dissemination, provided that the entire item is reproduced and the source is acknowledged.
As long as the European institutions do not provide everything as raw data in open machine-processable formats, there can always be some errors in the data being scraped, so all warranties for the fitness of this data are void.
The data available as JSON from Parltrack is available under the Open Database License v1.0 (ODBL). Parltrack is available as free software under the Affero GPL v3+ license.
Privacy
Visitors and users
Parltrack does not use cookies, neither does Parltrack log IP addresses in its web server access logs. The only private information Parltrack stores are the email addresses of the users of the monitoring feature. These email addresses are used for the sole purpose of notifying users of changes in tracked objects. We do however log HTTP user agents and referers, if you do not want these to be logged we warmly recommend you to install one of the many browser addons that mask these. If you want, you can also reach parltrack using a tor hidden service.
Public servants stored in the parltrack datasets
- The goal of Parltrack is to improve public access to legislative processes in the European Union. This allows journalists, academia and the general public to analyse documents related to legislative proposals, both current and past.
- For this purpose Parltrack scrapes and indexes documents published on the websites of the European Union institutions, including the European Parliament.
- Given the historic value of this information, Parltrack stores these documents for an indefinite period.
- As far as this data are personal data, the basis for processing is the legitimate interest of European citizens in the transparency of the legislative processes of the European Union.
- Parltrack publishes this data and although it is hosted within the European Economic Area, there are no blockades for visitors from outside the European Economic Area.
- Parltrack stores and processes the data of public servants (such as commissioners, MEPs and their assistants) and possibly persons being subject to legislative initiatives in the EP.
- Parltrack stores and process this data in the public interest for journalistic, historical and academic research purposes.
If your personal data is processed by Parltrack, you have a right to access, correction, erasure and objection under the GDPR. However, please note that these rights are severely curtailed by art. 17(3) GDPR as well as the Dutch implementing act of the GDPR, the Uitvoeringswet Algemene Verordening Gegevensbescherming (UAVG).
This act contains a provision in article 43(2) UAVG that provides a blanket exception from Chapter III GDPR (in which articles 17 and 21 GDPR both reside) for processing for purposes of journalism, historical and academic research. This is a derogation in national law as meant in article 89(2) GDPR.
As such, any of the rights granted to you by Chapter III GDPR only become enforcable as far as Parltrack's processing is outside the above purposes of an academic and journalistic nature.
You nonetheless have a right to complain, either with us, or with your own Data Protection Authority (DPA), or directly with the DPA competent over Parltrack.
Parltrack can be contacted under [javascript protected email address]
Parltrack does not have a Data Protection Officer (DPO). The DPA competent over Parltrack is the
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